Peruvian Nightmare

Peruvian Nightmare

It was Halloween.  Sarah was immersed. Her attention was on nothing but the box in the corner of the room.  She was trapped, going nowhere, focused on a treehouse of horror.

20 minutes later, when The Simpsons had finished, she turned off the telly and skipped over to the kettle to make a cup of tea.
This year’s Halloween wouldn’t be like last years.

‘It had better not be’, she thought, ‘I can’t afford to lose another dog, or Uncle’.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door.  Sarah wondered over to answer it with a mug of Tetley and a smile on her face.  This Halloween wasn’t going to be like last year she told herself again.  For one thing she wasn’t in Peru this year and that rash hadn’t come back.
She opened the door.  A balding man with round spectacles and a revolver leared at her.

‘Oh for ffffuuu’ She said exasperated. She knew what was coming.

‘You’re coming with me’ He began.  Sarah could smell he was intoxicated.  The man wobbled on the doorstep as Sarah dunked a hobnob into her tea.

‘Where we going?!’

‘Peru’


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40 miles away in the family Renault Espace, Sarah’s mum, Glenda, was driving home from Tesco after the weekly big shop.  Leaving Sarah alone tonight had been the right thing to do.  Sarah had to learn to be grown up about fear.  Mature in times of crisis and panic.  Glenda was finding it hard being a single parent.  Ever since Sarah’s Dad, Troy had taken that boat out for the day in Peru and never come back.
As Glenda drove home, she began to worry.  Worry because the ice cream was melting in the boot, and worry because all the radio stations in her car had become static.  All except one.  A station she had never listened to or even heard of before.

Peruvian FM.

‘Oh no. Not again. Not this year as well’.

‘Welcome to the HELLoween broadcast’ Said a man’s voice, chuckling slightly as his own wit.  ‘I. Have. Your. Daugther.’ The slow drawling voice continued.

‘’Oh lord have mercy, Sarah, Sarah!’ Glenda swerved the car as she drove. Horns blazed as she sped through the traffic. ‘Peruvian FM?! Where is that?’

‘I have your daughter, Glenda. Sarah is here’

‘Mum! Mum! Help! I’m in a plane on the way to Pe--’

Glenda’s foot hit the floor.  Airport. Go. Now. Peru. Damn. This was a nightmare.  She grabbed at her bag on the passenger seat and found her phone to call the police.  Of course she didn’t have any signal- this was a nightmare, her battery wanted charging a bit too.

The radio burst into life again.

‘I will tell you how you can get Sarah back, alive- after Baby, by Justin Bieber’

Glenda cried. The music started  She loved her daughter.  But somehow, she hated Bieber just a little bit more.  She turned off Peruvian FM and drove home.